Comments on: The Press, the News, and Public Preference

By: Serena Rainey

Serena Rainey — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:46:39 +0000

Sadly, even foreign views on our news are slanted because they tend to reflect the other countries’ elite philosophies. Just as papers in Saudi Arabia will generally treat US events according to the way the rulers of that country see the world, so also British papers speak of American events with the attitude of the British upper middle classes. It might be interesting to look at the two versions side by side sometime and compare how they report the same events.

By: Daniel Eason

Daniel Eason — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 05:47:19 +0000

NPR has a program which is dedicated to the media as a subject. It’s called “On the Media.” Anyone who reads Kate’s blog here with interest would probably enjoy it. The hosts take on media topics that most of us wouldn’t otherwise know go on within the profession. A for instance is that many papers pay writers, often times from other countries (and writing from those other countries), to write stories in the local section. The writer just assumes a conforming pen name.

Want a more impartial report of news? Try watching news from Great Brittain, France and Germany on TV. Their coverage is, inasmuch as I have seen, devoid of partisan slants, even on American politics. It’s neat, and sad, to get pretty good coverage of our own news from foreign news agencies.

Of course, PBS is still fairly reliable at presenting news without first weighing the presentation against the interests of sponsors. Though other programming on PBS, and sometimes even Newshour, certainly attempt at times to push ever-increasing tolerance concerning social issues.

By: mizo

mizo — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:37:29 +0000

Is it not a “cop out” to say that there is not enought time to “fact-check”?

Although FOX is accused, ny those who cannot tolerate other biases, while the other networks blatantly are intolerable of any othe opinions except there own, Fox, at least in my opinion, may even go out of their way to provide contrasting opinions, Juan Williams is a good example, as is the make-up of there panels, which provide outlets for opposing opinion.

Though, I still prefer FOX, almost exclusively, I find myself irritated by the distortions of those on FOX defending the undefendable.

By: Serena Rainey

Serena Rainey — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:42:34 +0000

I have a journalism degree and I remember that in J-School a lot of students wanted to be objective — it was the noble ideal, as athletes want to play perfect games and never foul or cheat. But with a reporter doing five stories a day, instead of two reporters working together for a week on a story, objectivity is harder. There’s no time to notice one’s biases, never mind think of a source other than one’s friends, find a neutral synonym for a buzzword or look up the claims in a quote to see whether they are true. All they have time to write are their opinions.